U 4/3 and Low Budget Weddings.....

we recently had a thread go to 150 regarding a single wedding photo where one of our forumers (Marla2008) was asked by friends to shoot thier wedding as a favor-no professional photographer. This is not an uncommon request if friends have seen a few of your photographs, they are broke and thier daughter is getting married. In fact, my daughter stated a low budget wedding/event photography business that way using and E-pl1 and some legacy lenses!

Marla got some pretty good shots in frankly terrible conditions. So, I thought it might be a good idea to post some "Low (or No!) Budget Wedding Photo Rules" to help people out who find themselves in this situation. Please also post your suggestions and examples. Please do not post "just don't do it" advice. This thread is to help out people who have already aggreed to do so.

Things to consider:

Most of us have the 12mp sensor cameras so ISO 1600 is the limit for color photos (usually) or ISO 3200 for B&W so direct your advice for people with PENs, GF-1/2/3, G1/2 etc. Churches are a dark, tough environtment for this sensor. Lens advice would also be appreciated.

So here are my "rules" and some examples:

Tedolph's Rule for Low or No Budget Wedding Photography:

U 4/3 camera's are well suited to the "photo-journalist style of wedding photography. So, other than getting the "must have" photos (rings, bride walking down the isle, portratis of Bride, Groom, etc.) there are really only a handful of rules for "budget" wedding photograpy:

First and foremost, composition/cropping must be good-pay attention to backgrounds and get environmental shots that place the subject in context when possible;

Avoid overly "busy" backgrounds, use hedges, church steps, etc. as backdrops when possible.

Photo's must be in focus and properly exposed, but super technical excellence is not required (e.g. slightly griany is OK, even if focus is not perfect that is OK);

White balance must be correct-the Bride is very senitive to the color of her gown, bridemaid's dresses, etc. as she paid a lot of attention to theses things when she picked them out-so do a manual WB and a custom WB. Here the WB is obviously off but the lighting conditions were very challenging (focus is a bit off too):

Good timing helps for "photojournalist style";

Album must have photo's of equal tonality and brighness on same and facing pages;

Find out and get photo's of important relatives and children-this is more important to the Bride than techical excellence.

Finally, if you are doing an album (and you should, they are not expensive-make it your gift to the Bride if this a a no budget job), the pictures on facing pages must have the same tonality and brightness or the album will look very amaturish. Fortunatley, this can be managed in PP. So, faces have to look the same and WB has to be correct, or at least eqaully incorrect for the photos that can be seen together as a goup in the album. Remember, most photo's in the album are not bigger than 3 x 5", and only a few are 8 x10" so no one is going to the pixel peeping. Composition and timing matter most.

Oh, one more thing. Use a bounce flash at the reception:

You are going to need at least one fast lens in the 40-50mm range and another in the 90-135mm range if the wedding is in a conventional church.